Cherries, Etc
by Saulie
Summary: Two kisses. Taste testing. Absence makes the heart grow kind of weird, but to the victor belong the spoils. Cherry flavor isn't quite cherry. Matt's not sure what to make of all this. MattxMisa, LxMatt. Yeah, folks, this one's pretty strange.


**[Written as an indulg****ent response to two requests for a kiss meme on ****expertease LJ's journal: Matt/Misa & cherry, lollipop, & cake for chococherry and L/Matt for tenshiamanda. I swear I'm working on something decidedly LESS bizarre to post here, but in the meantime, uh…enjoy…?**** This is probably as AU and what the hell as I'm ever gonna get. **

**…guess I shouldn't speak so quickly, but.**

**ah, whatever. **

**Happy early Valentine's Day?**

Matt's not sure what to make of all this.

At the moment, though, he's pretty sure he doesn't _care: _who the hell would care, what colossal idiot with the hormones of a parking meter would start dissecting complications with Amane Misa sitting _right there. _Looking _like that. _Lips slipping out of that put-on pout into a mess of a half-smile, red lipstick smudging into the sticky remains of a cherry lollipop. Those blue eyes. Pretty sparkling. Pretty dangerous. Pretty dishonest too, for the most part, but he—

Oh _yeah. _

--doesn't care about that either.

And what's he supposed to expect from Kira's accomplice, anyway.

_Surveillance. _

(can call it that for now, after the fact.)

Honesty? He can call Misa what she is: a spoil of war. _To the victor belong the spoils. _Unless of course the situation's fucked-up enough that you don't know who the victor is, but you suspect the victor's probably—

(a victim of acute myocardial infraction)

not gonna need it, not gonna want it, not gonna be in a position to claim it.

He leans back, his head against her shoulder. She's too thin. Too many bones. Skeleton draped in something soft. Then again, so is he.

She's laughing and he can feel it on the back of his neck, the way it runs down his spine like a premonition. He licks his lips. He wants a cigarette but can't be bothered to get up. Mello always yelled at him for smoking. Mello's a hypocrite, though. Was. Aren't they all. Weren't they. Misa likes it. Mello played with fire, but Misa plays with death, and all Matt ever wanted to play was video games. Now he plays with Misa. Misa's fun. Misa's always been fun. And is she _ever__—_

Hey, she's saying something.

"Try some," she says.

The lollipop dangles in front of his face, a candlelight just barely shining throgh it, making it some shade of translucent crimson. It smells sort of like cough medicine.

"You should," she urges, poking Matt in the forehead. "Misa tested it for you—"

(her voice's been pitched lower since Yagami died. Matt's the only one that noticed. Hell, he's probably the only one that knows.)

Like it's a drug.

Well, why not.

Her tongue's a little pinker than usual, too; he can see when she talks. "Yeah—okay, okay—"

He opens his mouth into an _aaah _and he—

_Hey—_

--shuts it onto cherry, saccharine and a little sharp around the edges like they always get when you suck on 'em too long. "Mmph." And then a mumbled, "Ow." Closes his eyes as the sunset gets caught between the curtain and the window, wincing, because, like Misa, he's really come to prefer this room in the dark.

What is it about sweet things, anyway. What—he never got a straight answer on that.

This—

"_So what is it, anyway? The big deal. With the sugar. I mean, it's—_

taste, it sort of—

_okay but other stuff's good too, you know, it's just—" _

jogs the memory a bit.

* * *

"I don't know what you mean," L said, calmly. He always held a fork like it was some rare specimen, or the handle of a particularly delicate teacup. There'd been cheesecake on the plate in front of him minutes before, but now he was arranging the crumbs into some weird geometric shape. The fork-tines against porcelain made a scratchy _ting-clank _sound..

Matt sighed, but it was a patient sigh. A little of his cake was left. A maraschino cherry perched on the side of his saucer. "Don't you get bored?"

L raised an eyebrow. "Don't _you?" _

--oh, damn him. "I meant the _food." _

"If you scowl into your tea like that, Matt, it will not get any sweeter."

--rolling his eyes, ignoring that weird jumping somewhere in his stomach. "Don't want that. Yuck. How many sugar cubes did you put in?"

"Seven."

Matt made a face. "Why?"

"I prefer odd numbers."

"…You are such a—"

"Are you going to finish that?"

Huh?

The fork was now pointing towards—him? No. The—oh.

"Probably." As Matt replied he stuck out his tongue. "It's mine. Besides, don't you have enough sugar already? The cake, and now—" –swallowing the second-to-last bite of his own cake for emphasis— "—the infamous seven?"

"This is why you aren't L, you know," L remarked, arching an eyebrow. "Really."

"—sorry?"

A tiny smirk. "'Enough'. Nothing should ever be accepted as enough." Without asking L picked up the cherry by its stem, letting it dangle from his spindly fingers, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. The image, to Matt, was kinda mesmerizing, though damned if he could—

"That's bullshit." –understand why.

Something in L's eyes was gleaming. "No. It isn't."

"Not that. What you said before." He gulped some of his tea. You know, he didn't even _like _tea. "About why I'm not L."

"Oh?" L seemed curious, amused. "What's your counter-argument?"

"I'm not L for, like, the most obvious reason _ever." _For such a smart guy, L was really—

"That so?" –pretty dumb. "Why?"

Matt shrugged.

"'Cause you are."

The cherry stopped swinging.

"…True," said L. Something in his expression had changed, but Matt couldn't make it out. The study of L's expressions was a task not unlike memorizing an encyclopedia. In Czech.

And, awkward silence.

There was a space between Matt and his plate of cake that L was looking at almost hungrily, but it was impossible to determine which exactly he meant to see. Argh. Matt stuck a fork in his last bite of cake and, with slow deliberation, stuck it in his mouth and chewed it, staring hard at L. He forgot to notice what it tasted like. It figured.

L seemed to come out of whatever reverie he'd stumbled on, blinked a few times, and popped the cherry in his mouth. A little juice sprayed out and Matt could feel it on his cheek. "Hey."

--still blinking. How could he look so distracted and so intense at the same time? Like he was listening to six different reports at once. "Right. That was yours, wasn't it?"

"Uh-huh." Matt cracked a grin. "That's larceny."

The detective answered with his own shrug, a _Who, me? _and—

(wait what what _what--?!--) _

the following kiss was quite light, really, though nowhere near as light as it was sudden.

(and it tasted sort of like--)

And L said, evenly: "Not anymore."

Matt tried to catch his breath. "…what was…?!"

L's smiles were always small, and always infuriating. "An exchange."

* * *

_--_(victory.)

"Matt?"

"Mmm?"

"You looked sort of—"

"Ah, it's not anything—oww," and he winces, the lollipop at the wrong angle like a paper cut on his tongue. Blood. Yum. Well, there are worse tastes, he guesses. Probably much worse. "—never mind." He sits up, straightening. Misa's bed creaks.

Misa pouts.

"What."

"You were _thinking." _The pout almost deepens into a frown. "Misa _told _you that's annoying."

"Sorry," Matt said automatically.

He can't blame her. He thinks it's pretty annoying, too.

"Here," he adds. "You take this." –and hands her the lollipop.

"Mmmm." She licks it obligingly. "Now it's different."

_Not the only thing that is. _

But, what else is new.

"It's kind of gross," Matt comments, shaking his head. "I can think of something better."

The lollipop, unsurprisingly, ends up on the floor.


End file.
